Google to Remove Author Images from Search Results

Google’s John Mueller announced on Google+ today that Google will cease showing author profile images and Google+ circle counts in desktop and mobile search results. This global change will roll out over the next few days.

“We’ve been doing lots of work to clean up the visual design of our search results, in particular creating a better mobile experience and a more consistent design across devices,” he wrote. “As a part of this, we’re simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results, removing the profile photo and circle count.”

Here’s what my authorship looks like:

And here’s what the simplified authorship will soon look like:

While usability and eye-tracking tests have shown that having an image appearing in the search results increases click-through rates and attracts users’ eyes to a result a searcher might otherwise overlook, Mueller commented that Google’s “experiments indicate that click-through behavior on this new less-cluttered design is similar to the previous one.”

“I have three times intentionally lost my image from the results and each time the drop was approximately 25 percent,” she said. “Since I have 1 million impressions and 110,000 CTR on average every 3 months, I think my tests show there is a significant drop.”

Here’s an image illustrating a dip in clicks when Google has dropped her author image from the search results:

This week, both LinkedIn and Facebook are beefing up their paid social offerings in different ways, while Google seeks to cut off Adwords revenues for fake news sites. And might Google be favouring desktop over its own AMP in its upcoming mobile-first index?

Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.